Download PDF | Tsvetelin Stepanov, Waiting For The End Of The World European Dimensions, 950 - 1200 , Brill Academic Pub ( 2019)
383 Pages
Preface: How the Idea for This Book Came About
The famous French president Charles de Gaulle spoke of a Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals”. I cannot be sure whether he knew that this continent was spatially formed with these topographic parameters in particular from the end of the 10th and the following 11th century onwards, with the massive Christianization of its inhabitants. Moreover, at that time, the three monotheistic religions already had a steady presence there, with the absolute domination of Christianity, of course. The exceptions were at the extreme southeast of the Continent, with the hegemony of Judaism in Khazaria as a ‘state’ religion (from the 9th century and just until the 970s), and in the southwesternmost and northeasternmost parts, with Islam in the Cordoba Caliphate (in present-day Spain) and, respectively, among the Volga Bulgars, whose state bordered the Ural Mountains in the east. The final homogenization of Europe at its northern borders, on a monotheistic level, occurred during the 13th–14th centuries, with the adoption of Christianity by the Cumans and, respectively, Islam by the Tatar-Mongols (in the easternmost regions of Europe). There has long been no doubt that historians write their texts on past ages with regard to the interests and pursuits of their contemporary audiences.
They often see this past from some current perspective (a more general or even personal one). From this point of view, the intentions of an author cannot be without importance. In this connection, for instance, I have asked myself, especially during the period of large-scale enlargement of the European Union in 2004–2007, how could such a macro-space be thought-and-narrated from a macro-perspective, in view of its medieval past? Could this be done through common ‘denominators’, such as the Migration Period, for example, or through wars, trade and economy, pandemics, spread of Christianity and the like? Could it also be seen through a common religious-philosophical and spiritual phenomenon—the Anticipation of the End of the world, with its first peak in Christian Europe in its entirety occurring just after the mid-10th century? After several years of acquainting with various primary sources and secondary literature, I think that the answer to the above question is positive. I also believe that the narrative for this entire Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals”, as told through the prism of the Anticipation of the End, could not be realized solely in the style of positivism and event history, since such a narrative would lack coherence (including due to the nature of some of the sources) and it would easily fall apart. In order to view Europe in its entirety through this very phenomenon, I thought it best to show it through two macro-perspectives: 1) an analysis of the notions about ‘the (unclean) peoples Gog and Magog’ and the directions of their invasions into European (mostly) imperial territories, and 2) the cult of St.
Michael the Archangel as a common legacy for the entire Christian Europe with the peak of his worship occurring during the 10th–12th centuries. The first of these macro-perspectives was developed in the present book; the second one should appear in a second volume of this study. Why have I chosen the themes of Gog and Magog and St. Michael the Archangel? Because these two themes are common for at least two of the monotheistic religions. For instance, the cult of St. Michael the Archangel is typical for Judaism and Christianity, while the paradigm of Gog and Magog in its connection to the Anticipation of the End of the world is present in all three monotheistic traditions. In other words, the author of the present book has sought common intersections and areas in apocalypticism and eschatology between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The micro-perspective is presented in Chapter 2, but can be best seen in Chapter 3, with the case of the anticipation of the End of times in Christian Bulgaria. Nevertheless, Chapter 3 quite logically also contains aspects of the macro-perspective (in the topoi ‘Promised Land’, ‘peoples of Gog and Magog’, ‘Last Tsar/Emperor’, etc., since they are all common for the Christian faith). Thus, the book reveals a constant ‘play’ with the scale of the optics.
The presented text is not yet another book about the anticipation of the End of the world in Western (Latin-speaking) Europe around the year 1000, which is what makes it unusual and distinct to a certain degree, if I may say so myself. Although it contains well-known facts and analyses (which is quite understandable in view of the number of decades this phenomenon has been the object of research), it also enables a new type of historical (and conceptual) narrative, as well as new insights into the scope of the above phenomenon. The presented book is above all an attempt at synthesis, and therefore must be expected to contain the mandatory for this type of work selections (of sources, authors, artefacts, etc.), reductions (including of some contexts), as well as a typifying and/or thematic approach, i.e. a targeted selection of central themes and subject lines. From this particular point of view, the lack of a certain fact constituting only a single one in a string of events of the same nature should not be perplexing. It would not be possible to compress into a single volume, with all possible contexts, a content that encompasses (almost) the entire European continent over two and a half centuries.
The deep conviction of the present book’s author is that this narrative—via the analysis-and-synthesis of the Anticipation of the End of the world phenomenon in a pan-European dimension—can be most adequately presented with the help of topoi and semantic cores (common themes), based on universal, including meta-narrative notions such as: ‘chosen people’, ‘Last Emperor’, ‘chosen Promised Land’, ‘unclean peoples Gog and Magog’ and the manipulation of the directions of their invasion of the Promised Land, the legacy of Alexander the Great, etc., as well as their specific manifestations in the various parts of the European continent. Such an approach really predetermines the mixing of the above two optics. It is important to emphasize that a number of the above-selected stable cores and mental constructs are present in all three traditions of the so-called Big Tradition, i.e. the monotheistic religions of the Book, since to a large extent they are the result of meta-narratives (the Bible and the Quran).
This is what enables us to see the entirety of Europe, through this prism of Anticipation, while keeping in mind its manifold manifestations in different places. Of course, the basic concepts/cores are best seen in the two branches of Christianity with centers in Rome (the Latin world) and, respectively, Constantinople (the Byzantine-Slavic one). Quite expectedly, the trajectories of the notions in these ‘worlds’ are realized in the manuscript mainly by viewing and analyzing the socalled imperial peoples of the Early Middle Ages and partly the High Middle Ages (the Byzantines, the Francs, and the peoples of the Holy Roman Empire, in addition to the Danube Bulgarians and the Khazars). At the same time, due attention has also been paid to two other non-imperial peoples that mark both ‘ends’ of Europe, namely Anglia and Kievan Rus’. Also situated at the end of Europe were the Volga Bulgars, but in their case they are also at the end of the European Islamic world at the time, which makes them an adequate addition to these Series of Brill. The notions of the End, although based on the so-called Big Tradition, are always ‘filtered’ by the respective culture, depending on the contexts and the local traditions.
This is why, in addition to the ‘common places’, we can expect to see a range of differences and discrepancies in the various regions of Europe, which is precisely what the author of the manuscript has attempted to research and analyze. Thus, we can simultaneously see a reconstruction of the entirety of Europe through the prism of a phenomenon that is common for its various parts, but also the differences and similarities in the treatment of some of its (topoic) cores in the different regions of Europe, determined by specific local events, caesurae (the ceasing of a legitimate kingdom’s existence, for instance), or are the result of differences in local traditions, in mental and social structures, of the selective uses (including manipulations) of the above cores/topoi, made by scholars in the various countries, etc. And so, the macro-perspective here (the entirety of Europe and the universality of the phenomenon, at least in the Christian world) enables us to portray large historical narratives, while the micro-perspective in the manuscript can be seen with the help of various case studies.
It is by analyzing the latter that the author has attempted to reconstruct some of the specific dimensions, particularities and changes in the perceptions of these large themes in various places, which are manifested in a single common ideological-religious context in Europe within the above two and a half centuries. Since the micro-contexts and the semantic cores are very often intertwined, a certain number of repetitions (of names, texts, etc.) in the text are inevitable. Chapter 3, which deals with the Bulgarian (Danube) case, is mainly based on a hermeneutic analysis, supplemented by approaches from comparative religious studies, historical anthropology and imagology. The difference with the approach in Chapter 1 is visible with a naked eye and is due to the nature of the Bulgarian sources that are studied and analyzed here and known in science as ‘historical apocalypticism’. The above approaches allow for texts of the historical-apocalyptic kind, especially widespread in Bulgaria in the period between the mid-11th century and the second half of the 13th century and the main source for the analysis in Chapter 3, to start ‘speaking’ to the contemporary audience.
Throughout the 20th century, positivist and Marxist-oriented researchers have hastily rejected the above kind of texts, considering them to be more or less lacking any cognitive historical value. If we were to follow their approach, i.e. to expect these highly specific texts to reveal stories à la medieval ‘Annals’, we would certainly wind up ensnared in methodological dogmatism. With the help of hermeneutics and anthropology, however, today we are able to reveal their hidden messages with regard to the End of times and the associated with it legitimation of tsardom (of the Danube Bulgarians, in particular). Advancing, to certain degree, the hermeneutical approach and that of the history of mentalities implies a particularly focused look at contextualizations, understood as attempts to interpret attitudes and practices that are visible in the assembly of texts, human actions and material traces of the respective historical period. Such an approach is not only acceptable because it is wellbacked with primary source material of a serial nature, but is also inherently innovative, because it enables the creation of a comparatively coherent narrative, based on some pre-selected topoi and—most importantly—consistent with the nature of the source type.
Acknowledgements My confession of having been ‘afflicted’ with apocalypticism and eschatology at the very end of the previous millennium would hardly surprise the readers of this book. The first result of this ‘affliction’ was the paper “Medieval Eschatological Texts and the Images of the Woman on the Balkans”, which I wrote together with Georgi Kazakov and which was presented at the conference “She on the Balkans”, held in February 2000 in Bansko, Bulgaria. It was subsequently published in 2001, in the book “Limits of Citizenship: European Women between Tradition and Modernity”, at the initiative of the editors, Krasimira Daskalova and Raina Gavrilova (Sofia, 2001, 17–29), for which I would like to express my own (and G. Kazakov’s) gratitude. Since then, this interest of mine towards the End of Times has continued to grow, encompassing more and more topics (St. Michael the Archangel, the topoi of Salvation and the Promised Land, the ‘unclean peoples of Gog and Magog’, etc.).
They all finally came together in this book, which is actually the first part of a twovolume study of various phenomena and processes typical for the people in Europe (and their way of thinking and acting) during the period from the mid-10th century up until the Fourth Crusade. The second volume will provide a detailed study of St. Michael the Archangel’s role in this ‘salvational plan’ preceding the Second Coming of Christ, seen not only from the viewpoint of the people in Western Europe, but also of those living in Byzantium, Danube Bulgaria, Kievan Rus’, and in the Jewish community (also seen as an archetypal element in the Old Testament), etc. During the years of collecting materials on this topic after 1999/2000, I have been fortunate enough to have had the assistance and support of many colleagues and friends, as well as various scholarly institutions, to which I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation. I would like to begin the lengthy list of names with Veselina Vachkova, Albena Milanova, Georgi Kazakov and Aleksandur Nikolov. Our conversations have always been an intellectual delight and a genuine challenge for the mind.
I would like to specially thank Adelina Angusheva-Tikhanova, Margaret Dimitrova, Margarita Karamikhova and Antoaneta Granberg for their continued friendship and for giving me access to some studies that proved to be unobtainable in Bulgarian libraries. I am also grateful to Svetoslav Stefanov, a loyal friend, classmate and colleague for several decades, for his help in reading-and-editing the manuscript. I need to express my thanks to my students from the Department of History and Theory of Culture at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Okhridski”, for their ‘provocative’ questions on the subject of the End of Times. Both by choosing topics for their theses that were similar to this subject matter and by expressing an interest in newly published books on topics close to the issues discussed in this book, they have kept my interest alive, as well as the desire to complete this work. It would be unfair not to express thanks to my colleagues from the Center of Academic Research (Sofia), for the grant I received (in 2012), which allowed me to write Chapter 2 of this work, and especially my colleagues and friends from the Byzantium Work Group. I am particularly grateful for the overall atmosphere of our interaction, which was created unobtrusively and without visible effort.
Indeed, it was the discussions in this (essentially informal) Group during the period between 2005 and 2011 that largely formed the ‘skeleton’ of this study. I also owe much to my colleague Zornitsa Angelova, for the technical assistance in shaping the different parts of this work. A number of colleagues and friends from abroad have also contributed—in one way or another—to the creation of my book. Also here the list is quite extensive. I am especially grateful to Predrag Mateić, Mary A. (‘Pasha’) Johnson and Helene Senecal from the so-called Hilandar Research Center of the Ohio State University (OSU), where I stayed for research purposes in April–May 2005. My study was focused on the perceptions of St. Michael the Archangel in the Eastern Orthodox parts of medieval Europe. At least two paragraphs of this book came into being thanks to the research that I did in the Center’s extremely comprehensive manuscript archive (including microfilmed documents), for which we should be especially thankful also to the monks at the Hilandar Monastery.
I am very grateful for the friendship and support that I have received during the years after 2000 from two British colleagues, namely Jonathan Shepard and Timothy Ashplant. The same can be said in full regarding Florin Curta and Peter Golden from the United States—both with regard to their friendship, and to the various materials that they have sent me and thoughts they have shared concerning some of the topics in this study. In some cases I have relied on articles and books that were sent to me by Anthony Kaldellis and Roman K. Kovalev (both from the US), to whom I also wish to express my thankfulness. I am also appreciative of my close friendship with my Russian colleagues Vladimir Petrukhin, Valerii Flerov and Valentina Flerova (Nakhapetian), as well as Olga Belova. My deep gratitude goes to all four of them for everything: the interesting conversations, as well as all the books and articles on various topics directly related to my study that they have sent me. Among my Russian colleagues, to whom I am also thankful for the shared materials and information on some of the topics in this book, I should also add Tat’iana Kalinina, Sergei Iatsenko, Galina Glazyrina, Elena Mel’nikova, Anatolii Turilov and Igor G. Semenov. Among my colleagues from Greece I must thank Panos Sophoulis, but chiefly Maria Litina and Charalambos Dendrinos, with whom I have shared a sincere and deep friendship for decades.
I extend my gratitude to my colleague Alexandru Madgearu from Romania—for the timely dispatch of important research done by him (and by other Romanian scholars) that helped clarify some details in my book. And last, but not least, my sincere thanks goes out to Vlada Stanković, and especially to Miroslav Jovanović (who is no longer among us, to my great dismay), both from the University of Belgrade. I will always remember how after 1999 Miki Jovanović gladly shared with me information on books and articles related to various topics concerning the End of Times, St. Michael the Archangel, etc., which were mainly published in Serbia and the Russian Federation. If I have somehow failed to thank anyone who has helped me to steadily follow this path of research during the last fifteen years, I do hope that they will forgive me, for it has not been done intentionally.
I am also grateful to all my colleagues who took part in discussing my manuscript, as well as to my reviewers, whose comments and suggestions brought additional value to this book. For the English edition of my work, I am firstly indebted to Prof. Florin Curta, whom I thank most sincerely for believing in the merits of this book and wishing to add it to Brill’s series ‘East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages’. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Marcella Mulder, Elisa Perotti and Irini Argirouli from ‘Brill’ for always finding the best solutions for the various administrative issues concerning this manuscript. And last, but not in importance, my heartfelt gratitude goes out to the translator of this book, Daria Manova, for doing her best to find the most adequate rendition possible in English of the original Bulgarian text.
Introduction The ideas about the Holy Land,1 the End of Times2 and the Crusades3 are both well known and extensively studied. The same could be said of the relevant texts (chronicles, visions, historical apocalyptic texts, etc.) and the symbols found there (‘the four kingdoms’, ‘the four beasts’, ‘Gog and Magog’, the Last Emperor, to name but a few).4
There, such notions appeared during the Christian Middle Ages and were related to such phenomena as ‘pilgrimage’, ‘saints’, ‘relics’, ‘Paradise’, etc.5 Also known is that around the middle of the 10th century, ideas about the Messiah’s coming could be found not only among the Christians in Europe (in connection with the anticipated Second Coming of Christ in the year 1000 or 1033), but also among some Jewish literati from the Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain, as well as among the elite in Khazaria (Hasdai ben/ibn Shaprut and the circle surrounding the Khazar king’/khagan-bek Joseph, respectively).6 Recently, the connection between death and the Apocalypse during the medieval period in Western Europe has also been adequately addressed.7 And last but not least, it is also well known that the roots to all these questions related to the Apocalypse and Eschatology should be sought in the Old and the New Testament, and especially in the books of Isaiah and Daniel, as well as in the Gospel of St. Matthew (Matt. 24, English Standard Version), St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 7–8), and in St. John the Apostle’s Revelation in particular (Rev. 20). The Old Testament is especially important, since it relates the story and the fate of the Israelites, the first ‘chosen people’: their separation from the other tribes and peoples, and from the empires of the Middle East, as well as their claim to a holy, Promised Land.8
The Old Testament also contains accounts of the divine approval of some paradigms through which ‘God’s chosen people’ self-organized and acted in the world, to be able to worship and obey this very God: kingship, charismatic leadership, specific laws, prophecy, the holy and blessed city of Jerusalem, sacred space (the Temple in Jerusalem, for instance), sacred objects (the Tables of the Covenant), etc.9 … During the past 150 years, scholars in Western Europe, the US and the Russianspeaking regions have all produced such a staggering amount of literature on these interrelated problems, that it would be virtually impossible to offer even a halfway complete overview of the various historiographical ideas within just a few pages. Such an endeavor would actually require the creation of a separate monograph, which is by no means the intention of this book’s author. Complying with these objective facts, I have instead decided to briefly present the extent to which these diverse topics have been studied, primarily with regard to Western Europe. In this connection, I intend to mainly follow studies of the last couple of decades, containing a synthesized presentation of the most significant tensions in historiography, which emerged as early as the 19th century. For this purpose, I have selected the works of Edward Peters, James T. Palmer and Catherine Cubitt.10 But before I turn my attention to their views and synthesis attempts, it is imperative to draw attention to St. Augustine and his idea regarding the exact date of the End of the world. According to St.
Augustine, noone except God (Acts 1:7; Mark 13:32) knows when the End of Times shall occur, i.e. it is pointless to rely on the various calculations, known as computus, with regard to the End. Hence, Augustine’s appeal for these 1000 years, mentioned in the Holy Scripture (Rev. 20: 4–6), to be perceived not literally, but symbolically. 8 The literature on the different aspects of the problem of the ‘chosen people’ and their This view, based on the exegesis of St. Augustine, shall remain as the official one of the Western Church during the Middle Ages.11 It should be noted, however, that despite this view and the authority of the official Church, there have always been attempts at such calculations, which, quite naturally and expected for the Middle Ages, have been typical for a rather thin social layer of people, mainly scholars and highly educated men. There were quite a number of such people also in Byzantium, which is evident from the interest in horoscopes manifested in Constantinople during the 10th–11th centuries.
Similar attempts at calculating the exact year of the Messiah’s coming were also made in the Jewish milieu, as will be seen further on in this book, especially in connection with the efforts in the mid-10th century to pinpoint this moment; the Khazars appear to be also indirectly involved in this. Paul Magdalino has noted, quite appropriately, that among the Jews living in Byzantium, there were also those who were prone to Messianic prophecies, especially in view of the anticipation of the thousandth year from the destruction of the Temple by the Romans (in 70 AD). Against this backdrop, Magdalino draws attention to a specific detail: the monks of the famous Monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople were deeply concerned with the Jewish question in the 1060s.12 At the beginning of this millennium, E. Peters proposed that the main theses and hypotheses regarding the anticipation of the End of the world in the West around 1000/1033, and mostly in view of the notion of en masse terrors preceding the onset of the year 1000, to be divided into three main groups, calling them “strong thesis”, “weak thesis”, and “strong counter-thesis”.13
The main representatives of the so-called “strong thesis” highlight the fact that in Western Europe, shortly before the year 1000, a number of accounts and examples of mass fear and apocalyptic tensions could be seen in the local societies. Most often such statements are based on accounts from two main sources from this time period, Liber apologeticus by Abbo of Fleury (ca. 945–1004) and Historiarum Libri Quinque by Rodulfus/Raoul/Ralph Glaber (ca. 980–1048). One of the most renowned names among the defenders of this thesis that emerged in the 19th century is that of the French historian Jules Michelet. Along with his supporters and followers, he insisted that every Christian in the West was terrified of the approaching year 1000 and was subsequently relieved when this year passed without the expected catastrophe becoming a reality.
As regards the so-called “weak thesis”, its representatives also accept the above claims, but regard them as valid not only for the year 1000, but rather for a much longer period, including, according to Johannes Fried’s version, the years between the 970s and 1042. In addition, they do not rely solely on textual accounts, but extend their analyses to also encompass sources from the sphere of art. One of the first among them was Henri Focillon, with his book from 1952.15 After the 1980s, the significant studies in this field include those of Johannes Fried and Richard Landes, as well as those of Daniel Callahan et al.16
They refine some of the claims of the representatives of the “strong thesis”, but at the same time they particularly viciously attack those who support the thesis about the lack of mass fear in the Western societies around the year 1000, i.e. the defenders of the “strong counter-thesis”. The latter include both authors from the 19th century (F. Plaine, R. Rosières, J. Roy, H. von Eicken, P. Orsi, etc.), as well as from the 20th (F. Lot, E. Pognon, G. Duby, etc.).17 James T. Palmer published (at the very end of 2014, Cambridge University Press) the book ‘The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages’. It contains a very concise but useful overview of the main trends in Western historiography related to the expected End of Times.18 Following E. Peters, Palmer proposes that the debates on this subject be divided into three main groups; while he himself is a supporter of yet another, “a fourth position” in the studies, as he describes it.19
He takes into account some of the recent views on the subject by Bernard McGinn and Paul Magdalino, which acknowledge the tensions between ‘psychological’ and ‘chronological imminence’ as intristic characteristics of the early medieval apocalypticism.20 In the end, James Palmer confines his main thesis on the apocalypticism in the West during the early Middle Ages to several key points: 1) apocalyptic thought “was commonplace and mainstream, and an important factor in the way that people conceptualized, stimulated and directed change”; 2) this thought was neither marginal nor extremist and, 3) it became a powerful factor in the discourse of reform in Western Europe, aiming at finding the best way to direct the people there, in order for them to lead a more meaningful and fulfilling life on Earth.21 On her part, C. Cubitt divides the scholars dealing with the issues surrounding the expectations of the End of the world in the West into two main groups, referring to “two historiographical strands”. She calls them figuratively ‘Millennial Maximalists’ and ‘Cautious Sceptics’ respectively.22 According to her, the first group includes those (Richard Landes, Andrew Gow, etc.) who perceive the various texts stemming from the time around the year 1000, together with the present references of ‘en masse’-fears, as evidence “of much more widespread fears and anxieties”, related to the inevitable End. This type of scholars interpret the ‘silence’ in the sources regarding the apocalyptic fears around the thousandth year as “a deliberate suppression” by the Church hierarchy of the evidence of popular movements around the year 1000.23 In fact, by the mid-20th century, Henri Focillon expressed the idea that the latent fears concerning the year 1000 were suppressed precisely by the Church in the West.24 As Tsocho Boiadzhiev points out, however, in this case it would be logical to question why the Church would do such a thing and if it did indeed attempt to do so, with what means and mechanisms was such an intention achieved.25
According to Cubitt, the group of the ‘Cautious Sceptics’ highlights the fact that the anticipation of the Last Judgment was commonplace during the early Middle Ages. They stress the “tenuous nature of links between expressions of apocalypticism and fears concerning the year 1000”.26 In the last couple of decades, this group could be further expanded to include, for instance, Sylvain Gouguenheim27 and Jean Delumeau,28 who support the old thesis that for the West, the fear of the thousandth year was only a myth.29 This group clearly overlaps with the representatives of the ‘strong counter-thesis’, as E. Peters called them. The author of the present book believes that some of the difficulties in interpreting the above topics in Western Europe could be solved, at least in part, by comparing them with the specifics of the European Christian East, namely those typical of the Byzantines and the Bulgarians in the period around 992 and 1092, when the End of Times was expected in this part of the known world. Thus, the situations surrounding the disputes about the fears associated with the anticipation of the End in the year 1000 could become much clearer, if they were viewed in a wider European Christian context. At the same time, it is obvious that revealing the spiritual atmosphere of a period of over 200 years from the historical development of a whole continent is a much more complex task than stating a series of facts.
This is why this book does not aim to accomplish such an ambitious goal. Its author, however, has decided not to rule out relying on some of the achievements of the approach, known as the history of mentalities, in order to attempt at least a partial glimpse into the minds of the literati of that period, as well as some of their specific ‘coping techniques’ regarding the tensions surrounding the emergence of the so-called signs, often perceived as preceding the End of Times. As will become clear from the pages below, the analysis of the sources, and especially those dealing with the subject of imperial eschatology and the associated with it End, cannot hide the fact that the anticipation of this End had intensified among certain circles in several parts of Europe, for instance in the Holy Roman Empire, Francia, England, Danube Bulgaria and Byzantium. Therefore, one cannot claim that the texts concerning apocalyptic topics and originating from the second half of the 10th and the following 11th century were mere rhetoric of some learned authors.30
However, it must be made clear that some of the greatest ‘initiators’ of these escalations were people from the inner circle of various rulers and, above all, learned men (clerics, monks, abbots), who also read different apocryphal texts with an apocalyptic perspective. It has long been established that the apocryphal texts, including the various Visions, were a favourite reading matter for many scholars in the Middle Ages, both in the West and in the East. Still, it is highly unlikely that these and similar texts reached the masses of common people; it is also doubtful that the imminence of the End of the world was widely preached from the pulpits. At this point, the available sources do not outline such a picture, which would cause us to accept as legitimate the claim of the existence of widespread fear among the various classes of the European societies, beginning from the second half of the 10th century onwards. Quite fittingly, a recent study dealing with the apocalyptic and eschatological thought in England around the year 1000, directly states: “Certainly, the evidence for apocalyptic speculation in England around the year 1000 points to elite deliberation, not popular”.31 As will be seen in this book, such a conclusion is largely valid also for the European Christian East, and for the Byzantines and the Bulgarians, in particular. In view of the above-said regarding the Christian East, it would be appropriate to recall the names of some of the major Byzantinists and their statements about apocalyptic and eschatological issues.32
Among them, I would firstly like to mention Paul Magdalino and Wolfram Brandes from the last 3–4 decades,33 as well as a highly significant and fundamental work from 1972 by Gerhard Podskalsky on the Byzantine imperial eschatology, which analyzes a great number of sources associated with eschatology in its relation to the imperial idea.34 To this day, this relation remains the basis for the study of apocalyptic texts especially in countries that have claimed imperial status during the Middle Ages. The same group should also include the research of Paul J. Alexander from the 1970s and 1980s, and especially his book from 1985.35 In his works, he reveals the ‘use’ of various ‘common places’ (topoi) in this type of writings in Byzantium, as well as their subsequent ‘existence’ in the Latin West, and also among some Slavic-speaking peoples. I believe that in view of his research, even if it is on Byzantine ‘terrain’, Magdalino can be included among the supporters of the “weak thesis”, as E. Peters calls it. Here I would just like to call to mind a statement of his in one of his recent works, namely that “‘l’an mil’ may have meant even more in Byzantium than in the West”.36 This conclusion of his is based on a number of his earlier publications, in which Magdalino analyzes the available sources from Byzantium, from the period between the mid-10th century and the first decades of the 11th century.
There, he discovers ample traces of tension among certain circles of Byzantine society with regard to the anticipation of the End of Times around 992.37 They have been traced and discussed in the respective parts of this book. According to P. Magdalino, the eschatological attitudes in Byzantium in the period between the 11th and the 13th centuries remain to be investigated.38 In my view, this statement requires at least some clarification: between 1018 and 1186, a large part of Byzantium was in fact comprised of the former First Bulgarian Empire, and, therefore, the historical apocalyptic texts written in Old Church Slavonic and stemming from the Bulgarian lands could be perceived also as a Byzantine cultural heritage, even if they were not written in Greek. Would it not be more logical, then, to view the above texts as an integral part of the apocalyptic and eschatological framework of the multiethnic Byzantine state? It is well-known that these texts from the Bulgarian territories of the Byzantine Empire contain a number of references (clichés, topoi, etc.) of Byzantine (and more generally Biblical) origins and that in some of them, the unknown Bulgarian scribes present precisely this integrity of the two Christian ‘chosen peoples’, the Byzantines and the Bulgarians, as being ruled by successive Byzantine and Bulgarian basilei on the throne (of their common Empire!).39
This is one more argument for including a whole chapter in this book, dedicated to the Bulgarian notions of the End of the world. It would not be too exaggerated to say that on the level of eschatological ‘crises’ from the 10th–12th centuries, a certain closeness can be seen between the Byzantines and the Bulgarians (and their respective beliefs), which gives reason to consider similarities of a typological nature in these phenomena, but also for a unity of mental attitudes among the representatives of some local educated (and mostly monastic) circles. Therefore, it would be only logical to make a quick overview of at least some of the most significant achievements in this field, to distinguish some of the main interpretative currents in the research, as well as to note certain issues that remain unclear for Bulgarian historiography.
The important monography of Ivan Biliarsky can be used in this respect, as it outlines a number of issues of a substantive and methodological nature. Biliarsky distinguishes several main trends in this type of interpretations in Bulgarian historiography in the last century, which could be grouped as positivist, folkloric-mythological, ‘patriotic’ (essentially positivist), ‘Bogomilistic’, etc.40 In Bulgarian historiography, in recent decades, scholars have devoted their attention mostly, if not entirely—perhaps the only exception here being Prof. Nikolai Shivarov—to some of the subject matter concerning the End of Times based on historical apocalypticism (after the second half of the 11th century), and mainly, quite expectedly, in a Bulgarian-Byzantine context.41 This is not surprising, in view of the tradition in Eastern Europe (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.) from the end of the 19th century and during the first 6–7 decades of the 20th century to subject this type of writings mainly to a textual critical analysis with prevailing linguistic research and conclusions. In addition, there are also those striving at all costs to search for and find in this particular ‘genre’ of apocalyptic works concurrences (or additions) to the information concerning actual historical events from the 10th–13th centuries. Unfortunately, such a positivist approach has never led to adequate results.
It must be noted that up until the end of the last century, the inertia of the so-called Bogomilistic interpretation of this type of works was also quite high; it was finally overcome in the last 20 years,42 thanks, in particular, to the research of Nikolai Shivarov, Miliiana Kaimakamova, Anisava Miltenova, Dmitrii Polyviannyi, Angel Nikolov, Tsvetelin Stepanov, Ivan Biliarsky, etc. In the analysis and reconstruction of the accounts in this type of texts, the majority of these authors accentuate Old and New Testament topoi and their use by Bulgarian literati from the 11th–13th centuries. These learned men aimed to ‘weave’ the Bulgarian past and present into the canvas of the universal Christian history of Salvation, mostly perceived through the prism of the Byzantine model. At the same time, the issues surrounding the anticipation of the End in the West remain underdeveloped in Bulgarian historiography and occupy—and quite sporadically at that—a limited number of researchers.
Among them can be named Tsocho Boiadzhiev and Ivelin Ivanov who have both devoted articles to some aspects of the anticipation of the End in Western Europe and especially around the year 1000, in particular.43 Both Boiadzhiev and Ivanov are inclined to agree with the predominant opinion in Western historiography, and especially the French one, that there was no real fear among the population in Western Europe around the year 1000 regarding an imminent End of the world. A certain computistical approach can be found in the article of Elena Stateva, titled “Interpretation of Daniel: the Bulgarian Scenario for the End of the World (10th Century)” (“Tulkuvanie Daniilovo: bulgarskiiat stsenarii za ‘kraia na sveta’ (X vek)”).44 This text, however, also does not go beyond the Bulgarian-Byzantine realia. The late Ivan Venedikov, as well as Todor Mollov and Ancho Kaloianov (the latter generally only sporadically) have preferred to analyze the End of Times phenomenon in the Bulgarian lands using mythological/folkloristic ‘keys’, with sometimes inadequate results, for obvious reasons (some of which I will discuss in Chapter 3). The authors of this approach are, not surprisingly, harshly criticized by Ivan Biliarsky.
In terms of theology and linguistic studies in Bulgaria, there has long been a number of studies dedicated mainly to the interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies,46 for example those of Daniel,47 Isaiah,48 or Ezekiel,49 as well as the messianic and apocalyptic notions in the Bulgarian Old Testament apocalypticism and apocryphal tradition in general50 and the apocalypticism-related image of the ‘Heavenly City’.51 To the best of my knowledge, the present monographic study is the first of its scope. It includes, in a comparative perspective, not only the Christian world, but also the world of Islam and Judaism, viewed through the prism of the main theme: the anticipation of the End of Times/the world. My primary objective, therefore, is to reveal the significantly greater scope of this phenomenon and its “derivatives” during the 10th–12th centuries, and not, as tradition dictates, to content myself with a mere presentation and analysis of the Christian case, be it that of the West, of Byzantium, or of the Danube Bulgarians.
Since the study encompasses an immense geographical area and numerous and varied “parties” (Bulgarians, Byzantines, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Khazars and Jews, the Rus’, etc.), it is inherently clear that the comparative analysis of the databases will be among the guiding principles for the author of this book. With this type of analysis, however, I feel it is also necessary at least to mention some of its ‘pitfalls’ and limitations. For example, every researcher is fully aware of the fact that the various reasons and contexts that have given rise to a certain phenomenon or event in a certain time and place will also lead to different end results.
Therefore, along with the search and recording of ‘common denominators’ among certain phenomena and processes that would make them comparable, the contextuality with its concrete specifics should also be presented, in my opinion, even if quite concisely. Which is why contextualizing has been given such a prominent place in the present study. Apart from the comparative analysis, and especially in view of its ‘deficiencies’, noted above, other important scientific approaches that are also needed are the historical-anthropological approach (esp. from the sphere of the socalled history of mentalities), the comparative religious studies and the hermeneutic methods, as well historical reconstruction. All of these methods together make it possible for such a text to integrate a great number of varied traditions stemming from regions that are far apart. The latter provides the opportunity for a kind of holistic examination of a (presumably) pan-European phenomenon, together with its various components, while also taking into account the regional traditions and their specifics.
It is therefore clear that the author of the present book shares the conviction that such a study could not be carried out solely on the basis of the positivist narrative. That is why I hope that the various perspectives and scales suggested above, along with the different methodologies applied in the individual chapters of this book will make it possible to refine old conclusions, to set new and specific highlights, as well as to ask new questions of the primary sources. Hopefully, the different perspectives will make us ‘read’ this fragment of the past by privileging other points of view, which could result in a somewhat different narrative (with regard to the traditional ones). The chronological framework of the study can be easily justified as follows. Its starting point (c. 950) is related to the emergence of a number of specific written texts in Western Europe in the mid-10th century, all of them dealing with different aspects of the End of the world subject matter. The end point (ca. 1200) is somewhat arbitrary, but is nevertheless closely tied to the time immediately preceding the fall of Constantinople—known as ‘the eye of the universe’, ‘the center of the world’, ‘the New Jerusalem’—in April 1204.
That event put an end to a lot of the established notions about the Christian world, as well as to one of its major (if not the main one) ‘world centers’. ‘Attaching’ the end point to the first conquest of Constantinople in 1204 has its logical explanation: in the early Middle Ages, the notion emerged that the End of this world will come, both by presumption and by necessity, only when the Byzantine capital falls in the hands of ‘the forces of evil’, foreshadowing the coming of Antichrist before Judgment Day. This is the moment to make another clarification: the present book is actually meant to be the first volume of the study; the second volume will be devoted to the European notions regarding the role of St. Michael—the Archangel who is inextricably linked to the subject of the anticipation of the End.
Which is why the two volumes should be viewed as an inseparable whole. Naturally, where necessary, I have touched upon some aspects concerning St. Michael the Archangel also in this first volume of the study. I would also like to note here in the Introduction that I shall not dedicate a separate chapter to the significant but extensively studied in historiography issue of the relation between the Crusades (after 1095), the liberation of the Promised Land, and the End of the world visions, or to the subject matter concerning the conflicts between the Papacy and the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, the latter often viewed as Antichrist before the End of Times. These ‘tensions’ between the Papacy and the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire from the 11th–12th century (especially during the rule of Emperor Henry IV and Frederick I Barbarossa) were also perceived in an apocalyptic ‘key’ by some of their contemporaries.52
There is also no separate chapter for the well-studied, particularly in the West and in Russia, issues concerning Antichrist. A more active interest in the just-named topics would have most probably distracted me from delving into the very different areas of research of the phenomena, processes and facts of the anticipation of the End. Of course, in the text below, I have presented, where necessary, the relevant contexts of particular events or phenomena, as well as the specific manifestations of a given process (or processes) related to the above-mentioned three topics. In short, I have tried to seek answers to some of these questions in the relevant places, mostly within the first two chapters of the book. And so, led by the well-known saying that everything (events, processes, facts, etc.) can be understood only in comparison with something else, on the following pages I have attempted to present and interpret specific phenomena from the period mentioned in the title, and within a wide comparative framework.
As I mentioned earlier, this framework encompasses not only the Christian world and its expectations regarding the End of Times, but also parts of the Islamic world and the Judaic one. I believe that in this context, some processes and phenomena stemming from the two Bulgarian medieval states (Danube Bulgaria and Volga-Kama Bulgaria) could get clearer dimensions and a more adequate interpretation. Consequently, regarding the Bulgarian Christian case, this work will attempt to expand the usual horizon of research, which commonly views the issues surrounding the anticipation of the End mainly according to the Byzantine Christian paradigm. In this respect, the present study stands closest to some of the articles authored by Prof. Archiprb. Nikolai Shivarov in the last 11–12 years.53
He is probably the only author in Bulgarian historiography who has outlined the ‘Bulgarian’ anticipation of the End of the world/End of Times against the backdrop of the common panEuropean horizon. I would nevertheless like to point out that in his writings, N. Shivarov also does not go beyond the scope of the Christian world. … It is necessary as well to briefly clarify the matter regarding two of the terms used in this book. They are apocalypse (apocalypticism) and eschatology. In some places in the text, they have been used interchangeably, something that can also be found in many other studies, especially ones which are not strictly theological. These terms, of course, are not identical in nature, which is evident even on an etymological level. Thus, ‘eschatology’ directly points to the notion of “the last things” (Gr. ta eschata), derived from the fact that all men are mortal and that there will be a Judgment Day (the Last Judgment) for everything here on earth in some indefinite future. An important distinction exists between the individual and the universal, or cosmic, eschatology.
The individual one is connected to the fate of the individual, i.e. the fate of the soul post mortem, whereas the cosmic eschatology implies much larger transformations or even the end of this world.54 In turn, apocalypse (Gr. apokalypsis) means “revelation” in a Christian context, but can also be seen as a kind of subdivision of eschatology. And apocalypticism is a unique branch of Jewish literature that emerged in the so-called Second Temple period, i.e. in the years of greatest hardship for the nation of Israel. It is an expression of the Jewish aspirations to re-establish the Messianic Kingdom of David on earth.55 During the Christian Middle Ages, historical apocalypticism easily merged with millennialism (millenarian notions) regarding the year 1000, with the emphasis being more on the coming of a utopian age than on supernatural revelation.56 Many Christians, however, also use the word ‘apocalypse’ in another meaning: as some sort of catastrophic evil or disaster that will occur on the way to the final end. In some cases, these two concepts overlap since both of them are inherently tied to the belief that the End of this world is inevitable.
Moreover, according to both eschatology and apocalypticism, a believer could hope that the End would bring with it a solution to all earthly problems and would indeed end the suffering, even carry them to some kind of paradise.57 … What makes possible the comparison of so many cases from the world of Christianity? It is worth noting that from a certain point onwards, some theologians in Western Europe started to directly tie the End of Times to the year 1000 (or 1033). The world, influenced by the Byzantine vision for time, eternity and the End, however, relies on calculations which are based on the so-called Alexandrian Era or Era of Constantinople, and which are tied to two wellknown starting points: 5500 and, respectively, 5508 years from the Creation of the world (era Mundi). And so, the Byzantines associated the End with the year 992, as well as with 1092, and especially 1492. It is also worth noting that both traditions of computistical calculations stem from the same Biblical, i.e. paradigmatic, base—that of Genesis (1–2), namely of the six days of God’s ‘work’ creating the visible world and the seventh day, His rest, as well as from a psalm (Ps. 89:5–90:4), which reveals that for God, a thousand years are as one day (“as yesterday when it is past”). The relation between Christianity, as viewed through the prism of awaiting the End, and the world of Islam and Judaism is evident not only in their common ‘root’, the Old Testament, but also in another highly important paradigmatic figure—the first ‘universal’ king, Alexander the Great of Macedonia.
The figure of the latter is tightly bound to a series of phenomena in these three worlds, all of them based on themes surrounding the End and the attacks of the so-called ‘unclean peoples (of) Gog and Magog’ before the End of Times. As shall be seen later in the book, mostly in Chapter 2, Alexander the Great and his successors had tried to create, for the first time in the postdiluvian history of humankind, a single area of civilization. It was perceived as a meta-space with trans-cultural and trans-chronological characteristics,58 i.e. as a space of civilization par excellence. This primary perspective also became one of the significant ‘starting points’ for the comparative analysis of so many different cases, attempted in this book (for more details, see Chapter 2, as well as parts of Chapter 3). Thus, by comparing the same phenomenon through the prism of the three monotheistic religions, we can gain a deeper insight into the expectations for the End of the world before 1200. By expanding our perspective (by including the interpretations of both the Volga Bulgars, the Jews, as well as those of Kievan Rus’, an approach that is not popular, at least among the Bulgarian historians) and transcending the much narrower traditional boundaries of these historiographical studies (focused, for the most part, on Western Europe and, albeit only partially, Byzantium), we can also expand the borders of the European civilized world in the period before the end of the early Middle Ages.
To be able to see quite clearly not only the similarities, but also the differences from the other parts of Europe, as viewed through the prism of the expectations regarding the End of Times in the time period in question, I have decided, and quite rationally so, to dedicate a separate chapter to all the relevant facts and existing evidence (along with its analysis) that pertain to Danube Bulgaria (see Chapter 3). I feel that in this way, the Bulgarian Christian case can stand out even better against the Angles and the Saxons, the Byzantines, the Western Francs and the inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire, the Rus’ and the other Christian people, as well as the Jews (actual Jews and the Khazars), and the Bulgar Muslims of Volga Bulgaria. … And finally, a ‘warning’ to the potential readers of this book.
Since many of the genres, names of peoples/ethnic groups, religions, etc., as well as a number of motifs, archetypes, topoi, etc. that appear in this text are interwoven, given that they are by definition all part of a shared ‘network’ of concepts (‘chosen people’, ‘chosen kingdom’, salvational mission, world directions, End of Times, unclean peoples, sacred/holy land, etc.), the resulting picture is quite large and extensive. At the same time, it is also somewhat difficult to continuously unfold the story in a truly coherent (chronologically and otherwise) manner. As a result of the latter come the inevitable, but only occasional, repetitions in the three chapters of the study.
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